(The following story by Mike Lindblom appeared on the Seattle Times website on December 19.)
SEATTLE — Beginning next week, hundreds of people in Everett and Edmonds will be treated to one of the world’s most spectacular commutes.
Sound Transit signed contracts yesterday to pay the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway $258 million for track improvements and access.
Eventually, four weekday trains will ply the wooded corridor along the banks of Puget Sound. But there will be only one round-trip train at first, until portions of the 35-mile corridor are widened from one track to two tracks. A second train is due in late 2005. By 2007, the third and fourth trains will arrive, and service will begin at a new station in Mukilteo.
The deal allows Sound Transit to operate trains on the line forever, and the transit agency can renegotiate contract increases with the railroad to add trains in the future, said Sounder director Marty Minkoff.
A “tailgate party” is planned at 9:30 a.m. Sunday at Everett Station, where a special train will depart for the Seahawks game against the Arizona Cardinals.
Riders on the Everett-Seattle line can board for free for the first two weeks. There are fewer commuters than usual in late December, so Sounder has the opportunity to attract other riders, Minkoff said.
A trip from Everett to Seattle requires one hour, but Minkoff said he expects to shave off several minutes when track improvements are done. Speeds still will be limited by curves on the coastlines and a bridge crossing at the Ballard Locks.
In a related deal, Sound Transit bought 21 miles of freight tracks in Pierce County. By 2007, Sounder could roll from Tacoma to Lakewood, with the opportunity to reach DuPont and Nisqually a few years later ? a 100-mile corridor from Everett.
“This opens up the possibility of Sound Transit expanding to other counties in the state,” said Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg, who becomes the transit agency’s chairman next month.
Snohomish County Executive Bob Drewel said the Sounder deal with the railroad was a second dose of good news, after Boeing’s announcement on Tuesday that the 7E7 airplane will be assembled in Everett. Sound Transit’s funding will add capacity for the freight railroad and local ports, something Drewel said he has mentioned to Alan Mulally, chief of Boeing’s commercial-aircraft division. The Port of Everett will build a dock at Mukilteo to move airplane parts from barges to railcars.
In the seven years since voters passed a regional transit plan, the overall costs of north-line tracks, trains and stations have doubled to $377 million.
Still, there is little controversy in the county, where officials say people are eager for an alternative to freeways. Years ago, commuter rail was a key selling point because light rail couldn’t reach that far north in the foreseeable future.
“Sounder to Everett is, at least in my time in the Snohomish region, the most important transportation improvement that has yet been presented,” Drewel said.
Elected officials spent nearly an hour praising each other after two years of cliffhanger negotiations, while congratulations poured into Sound Transit’s headquarters at Union Station.
“These are the kind of investments that 200 years from now, 100 years, 80 years ? people will wonder how we got them,” said board Chairman Ron Sims, the King County executive.
Lloyd Flem, president of the Washington Association of Rail Passengers, said nearly all urban rail systems developed in the past 20 years, including Sounder’s three trains from Tacoma to Seattle, have proved popular.
“Do they cost a lot? Yeah, they cost a lot, but once they’re developed, they tend to serve the people well,” Flem said.
Sound Transit and the railroad announced a tentative agreement in May but took seven more months to sort out details. Transit taxpayers will pay to mitigate damage to coastlines and wetlands, while the railroad bears the financial risks of soil contamination and construction overruns.
The deal leaves out two reverse-commute trains that were promised in the agency’s voter-approved regional transit plan in 1996.